Current
hours:Mondays,
Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m.
or by appointment.

PCGS
will be CLOSED
Saturday,
February 10!

INCLEMENT
WEATHER POLICY:If
Bolivar schools are closed because of weather,
the library will also be closed. There will be
no night meeting, either, if school is closed
on a Thursday. If bad weather develops on a
Thursday afternoon before the regular monthly
meeting, members can call 417-777-2820 to find
out the status of the meeting. Click
here
for school closings list at ky3.comContact PCGS for more
information.

CLOSING
DATES FOR 2017:

Thursday - Sunday,
November 23 - 26 (Thanksgiving)Saturday, December 23 through Monday, January
1 (Christmas break)We will open at 10 a.m. on
Wednesday, January 3, 2018

TELEVISION
CREW FILMS SEGMENT IN POLK COUNTYThe Polk County
Genealogical Society Library turned into a
television studio for a few hours Wednesday
morning, June 2, 2004. The first floor of the
building was the back drop for a segment for the
public television series "History Detectives." Click
here for the complete
story and pictures. The episode aired
Sept. 13, 2004.

LIBRARY
BUILDING DECLARED HISTORIC SITE
In November 2001, PCGS started the application process
to get the PCGS Library building, formerly the public
library, listed on the National Register of Historic
Places. Lou Kemp was the coordinator of the process.

The building was built by a grant from Andrew Carnegie
and the Carnegie Corporation in 1914/15. T. H. B.
Dunnegan donated the land where the building is
located.picture
from the early days of the library

The
building was designated as a historic site because of
its "social significance in the life of Bolivar and
Polk County" according to President Susan Sparks. It
was officially added to the National Register of
Historic Places on July 17, 2003.

For more on this story, see the article below from the
Bolivar Herald-Free Press, August 27, 2003,
page 1-A. (Reprinted with permission. A big thank-you
to BH-FP!)

OLD LIBRARY IS COUNTY'S
FIRST HISTORIC SITE
By Linda Fuerst

After a year and a
half of research, the latest project of the Polk
County Genealogical Society has reached a
successful conclusion. The former Polk County
Library building on the Bolivar square, now the
home of the genealogical society, has been added
to the National Register of Historic Places. It is
the first building in Polk County to be designated
as an official historic site.

The members of the society started the application
process for the historic designation in November
2001. Lou Kemp acted as coordinator for the
project, gathering the necessary documentation
about the role of the library in community life.

"It had always been a dream of mine to get this
building named as a historic building," Kemp said.
"The other members of the society were a lot of
help; every time they were looking in old
newspapers for someone's obituary, if they saw
something about the library, they copied it, too.
We gathered a lot of information."

The building was built in 1915, funded by an
$8,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie
Corp. The Bolivar Library Board was headed at that
time by T.H.B. Dunnegan, who also donated the land
where the building is located. The architect who
designed the building, James Heckenlively of
Springfield, was also involved in the design of
the Shrine Mosque, St. John's Hospital and other
Springfield landmarks.

"This kind of research wasn't that difficult for
us," said Susan Sparks, president of the
genealogical society. "We have experience in
finding the history of people; it wasn't that
different to find the history of this building."

An application for a historic site has to go
through the state Office of Historic Preservation,
which approved the Bolivar application in April.
The state office forwarded the request to the
National Park Service in Washington, D.C., which
officially added the library to the National
Register of Historic Places on July 17.

"There are two ways to be designated as a historic
site; either through architectural significance or
through social significance to the community,"
Sparks said. "We went for the social significance
of this building in the life of Bolivar and Polk
County."

The building is much less elaborate than many
other Carnegie libraries in other parts of the
country, but Sparks said she doesn't mind.

"They only had $8,000 to build with, so they spent
their money on structural stability, not on
decoration," she said. "They put big steel beams
in the floor and in the ceiling, and that's one
reason the building is in such good shape. I'm
thankful for that."

Sparks and Kemp both said they hope other owners
of downtown buildings will get involved in
historic preservation.

"We just felt this building was important to the
landscape of the square and the life of the
community," Kemp said. "That's why we wanted to
save it."

WORK ON THE
OUTSIDE STAIRSThe
library was built in 1914; the first set of stairs
failed in 1926. New ones were built on top of the
old stairs. There was no support built for the new
stairs, hence the reason the latest ones had bowed and
cracked. The old ones were knocked out and new ones
were poured in their place.Day 1, July 2009

Day ?, August 2009After
(2009)

WINDOW
REPLACEMENTKenny Jones with Bolivar Insulation
installs windows at the Polk County Genealogical
Society’s Library and Research Facility in downtown
Bolivar Wednesday, January 20, 2010. All 30 windows in
the building are being replaced to increase energy
efficiency and maintain better climate control for the
documents stored in the facility. The windows being
replaced were installed in the 1960s.
Caption from page 1A, Bolivar Herald
Free Press, Friday, January 22, 2010.
Photo by Charlotte Marsch.Other pictures by PCGS
members

Business meetings are the first
Thursday of every month at the
Polk County Genealogical Society Research
Facility, on the square in Bolivar, MO

Located on the southeast corner of the
courthouse square in Bolivar, MO

If you found this
website to be helpful, please remember that the
Polk County Genealogical Society is a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization. This means that
any donation, both large and small, is tax
deductible. This could include
books, needed items or cash donations. Click
button to donate through PayPal.